m a jor a s P e C t s oF C H i ne s e P oe t ry 3Whether for genuine self-expression or as pure literary exercise, literati poets ha-
bitually chose to portray themselves as lonely, world-weary wanderers perpetually
yearning for home. Of course, in reality the world of culture and politics is not all
travail and suffering. “The Depiction of Things” speaks to the leisurely lifestyle
enjoyed by some literati poets closely associated with the imperial court.
The world of nature, by contrast, furnishes a backdrop for two themes marked
by spontaneous joy and spiritual fulfillment: “Landscape” and “Farming and Re-
clusion.” For Xie Lingyun (385–433), Xie Tiao (464–499), and others caught in the
throes of public life, a landscape-viewing journey provided a welcome escape from
cares and offered pleasures of the mind unobtainable by viewing palace ladies or
objects of culture. To lofty-minded poets like Tao Qian (365?–427), it is a tranquil
farmstead that promised deliverance from the corrupt political world and a tran-
scendent union with the Dao, the everlasting process of nature. Together, the two
Xies’ landscape poetry and Tao Qian’s farmstead poetry marked the epoch-making
discovery of nature as a primary poetic subject in its own right.
The world of the imagination is the venue for two other important themes:
“Imagined Journey to the Celestial World” and “Remembrances.” Transcendental
roaming (youxian), a theme first found in ancient shamanistic songs (C2.1–3), is
of perennial interest to literati poets. It enables them to fantasize a solitary escape
from the mundane world into a pure land of eternal bliss. It also furnishes them
with an effective means of ridiculing all worldly attachments. Reflections on his-
tory (yongshi) also offer an imaginary flight of the mind, but one within the bounds
of historical time and place. They often engender a somber brooding over an ir-
revocable loss—the death of a loved one, the destruction of a mighty army, the loss
of an empire, to name just a few. They tend to end with a melancholy lamentation
over the evanescence of all things, grand or small, and the ultimate futility of all
human endeavors. Not all historical reflections, however, are negative and gloomy.
By looking to the past, some poets, like Tao Qian, found spiritual companions and
noble models for emulation in times of adversity.
All these literati-centered themes, once firmly established during the Six Dy-
nasties, remained preeminent in the poetic canon until the twentieth century.
After the Six Dynasties, the creative energy of Chinese poets seems to have been
directed to broadening and deepening these themes rather than searching for new
ones. Think, for instance, of the full flowering of landscape poetry and farmstead
poetry during the Tang and Song. Consider, also, how the theme of “Hardship
and Injustice” was brought to a new height by Bai Juyi (772–846) and Yuan Zhen
(779–831), the leaders of the New Yuefu movement. In revisiting old themes, Tang
and Song poets displayed extraordinary innovation and sophistication in blending
culture, nature, and imagination. In the pentasyllabic regulated verses by Du Fu
(712–770), for instance, the worlds of nature and man are deftly merged into a
grand cosmic vision (C8.1). In the finest heptasyllabic regulated verses by Du Fu
and Li Shangyin (813?–858), contemporary politics, dynastic history, legends, and
personal experiences are seamlessly interwoven into a tapestry of exquisite beauty
(C9.3, C9.6, and C18.1).